Help! Problems with "female" bettas!

Rava

Rava

Betta Babe
Dec 26, 2002
223
0
16
CA
Well, all good things must come to an end, or so they say...

My two "female" bettas didn't seem to fight at all when I put them in their aquarium Tuesday. Wednesday I was gone the whole day, and when I came home Vitara (my red baby girl) was hiding in the back of the tank, and her fins seemed to be frayed a little, I guess you'd call it. I wondered but wasn't particularly concerned, as I hadn't seen Elontra (blue "girl") paying any attention to Vitara anyway. But today I was watching them and realized Elontra IS chasing and abusing Vitara. Violently sometimes!
Also, Elontra is full on flaring at Vitara.

Can females flare?!?!

I'm worried Elontra is actually a baby boy. I removed "it" from the tank as soon as I discovered "it" had been chasing Vitara. So my dilemma is this... First, I need to know if females can flare. I need to be sure Vitara is really a girl, and if Elontra is actually a boy. I'm going to try to take Elontra back in a couple days, hopefully not until Vitara's fins heal. But I NEED to know if there's any way I can tell, at least be pretty sure, that Vitara (the one I'm keeping) is a girl, so I don't buy another fish and have to take it back as well... Please, any advise is appreciated!

Also, Vitara's fins will heal with no help from me right? She's a little frayed on her top and bottom fins (especially the bottom), and her tail fin has another (besides the one present when I bought her) miniscule hole.

Thank you soooo much for any help! I'm really confused with the whole situation. :P :confused:
 
im sorry i dont know anything about bettas, but for her damaged fins, you could add a little Melafix to the tank. make sure there's no carbon in your filter. i had a male krib with some damaged fins that i treated with this and his finnage came back wonderfuly. good luck with them.
 
Yes females can flare. My one I used to have would flare at the male through the divider. There gill plates dont come as far out as the males though. It may be that you just have a mean female but I have seen like 10 or more female bettas kept together at stores with other fish and all of them were getting along fine. If they really are like babies or small you might next time want to go and get bigger ones so you can tell the difference better. Goodluck.
 
I put a female betta in with my male betta once and she nearly killed him! At one point she had the male's entire dorsal fin in her mouth and was holding him upside down. Some of the females can be very mean.
 
Females Bettas and Aggression

The most aggresive betta I've ever owned was a female who grew to be larger in body than all of my males.

Play it safe. One betta per "tank" regardless of sex.
 
Check and see if she's got a little white tube protruding from her pelvic area. If she does, then she's definitely female. But I'm not sure at what age that appears, or if it's there from the beginning.
 
I've had luck keeping female bettas in tanks together, but only when I had them in groups of three or more. Even then sometimes it's iffy. Females are aggressive and territorial, but unlike the males, they seem less inclined to fight to the death (in my experience, anyway). If you have a dominant female, she'll beat up on her subordinate, but if you have more than one subordinate, then the aggression is dispersed.

Lots of hiding places help, too. Mine always liked floating plants.
 
In the store Female Betta agression is dispersed. Normally they get a certain number and by the end of the first day one is leader, and all the others have nipped fins.

Female bettas can definitely be as combative as the males, and should be kept either alone, or in groups higher than 3, like most gouramis.

--Mia
 
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